ASHEVILLE, NC.- Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center announced its fall 2018 season of exhibitions and cultural events in Asheville.

BMCM+AC now has a permanent place to call home for the first time in their 25-year history. This new home at 120 College Street is a relocation and expansion to a newly renovated building on Pack Square Park in the heart of downtown Asheville, NC. The new 6,000sf space includes:

• 2,500sf of flexible exhibition/event space with a 200+ seating capacity
• a permanent Black Mountain College history and research center
• an expanded library and education center with over 1,500 BMC-related texts
• on-site storage for BMCM+AC’s permanent collection and research center

This project helps solidify the museum as the preeminent Black Mountain College resource and a vital international art center, preserving the history of Black Mountain College and continuing its far reaching legacy. By providing a space for incubation and cross pollination at a pivotal point in world history, Black Mountain College became a globally recognized center of innovative ideas in education and the arts. Notable alumni and faculty include R. Buckminster Fuller, Josef and Anni Albers, Charles Olson, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Ruth Asawa and Ray Johnson.

120 College Street is a historic site built in 1925, when it was the home of The Asheville Times newspaper. The renovation preserves the historic qualities of the building, including Prohibition-era tin ceilings and brick flooring on the lower level, while creating a comfortable and inviting space for exhibitions, performances, research and programming. Not only does move extend the possibilities for the space, it is transformative because it includes a path to ownership within five years, making it the museum’s first permanent home in its 25 year history.

Construction at 120 College Street was completed in early August 2018, with generous support from a $200,000 grant from the Buncombe County TDA and $200,000 raised by the BMCM+AC board covering construction costs. Architect Patti Glazer and contractor Beverly-Grant are leading the project, and Randy Shull, the artist who led the renovation of the original BMCM+AC location at 56 Broadway, is designing key aspects of the project, particularly the library, the museum shop, and the front desk area.

120 College Street opened on September 28, 2018 with the landmark exhibition Between Form and Content: Perspectives on Jacob Lawrence and Black Mountain College. This exhibition contextualizes the work of influential African American artist Jacob Lawrence through not only historic artworks but contemporary commissions in response to Lawrence’s legacy.

Executive Director Jeff Arnal says, "Central to our mission is to preserve, celebrate and advance the legacy of BMC and the story of Jacob Lawrence’s BMC experience is one that needs to be told. Both the historical art and new commission portions of this project will look at art, culture, and race and examine issues of equality that are vital to our national conversation. The summer of 1946 was one of Lawrence’s first, direct experiences with the Jim Crow south, and although there was a welcoming atmosphere at BMC, the artist and his wife never left the campus for the entire eight weeks of their stay. In addition to the significance of Lawrence's work and the 1946 BMC Summer Institute, this project represents an ambitious new direction for BMCM+AC, both programmatically and artistically. While we have included contemporary work in our past programs, this will be the first time we are commissioning a series of new work on this scale. The scope of the project is designed to look past creative silos, we are interested in how contemporary art and performance can exist in dialogue with historical art."